Shaking his head, Geoffrey took five minutes to explain what had occurred. “…So you see Alessandra and I must marry.”
Lady Chenmarth stood so quickly that her chair rocked. Uncharacteristically, she put forth a hand to touch her son’s coat sleeve. He looked down at it in surprise. “But you love her?” she demanded.
“No,” Geoffrey replied, also rising to his feet, her hand remaining on his sleeve. At a look of distress on her features, he asked, “How could I? This was the first time we’ve met in some while. I scarce knew her face, and certainly not enough of her in order to have grown fond of her.”
Lady Chenmarth stood still, every line of her body radiating anxiety. “You mustn’t marry her,” she said fiercely, staring into his eyes.
Whatever had got into her? “Indeed I must, or be labeled a cad.”
For a moment Geoffrey thought he saw tears forming in his parent’s eyes, but she blinked rapidly and turned away before they could fall. Face averted, she sank back into her chair. “No. You are correct. It must be done.”
“Believe me, I’ve tried to think of an honorable way out—”
Mama raised her head, again pinning his gaze to hers. “You must promise me something before you do this thing, this marriage.”
“Promise?” Geoffrey narrowed his eyes. What closeness did the two of them possess, what connection existed that would make him eager to please Mama? What in the past ten years had earned her the right to demand anything of him?
She sat forward on her chair, and shocked him further by seizing both his hands, pulling him down to sit beside her on her divan.
“I’ve never spoken… Never said… It was right that boys should learn from their father, be with their father, but—” Now her tears could not be blinked back, and they spilled down her cheeks. But Mama ignored them as she concentrated on Geoffrey’s face. “I would not wish this marriage upon you, not where there is no regard for one another. A forced marriage— A loveless marriage, it is the stone upon which you’d build the unhappiest life you could possibly lead. I’ve led that life.”
“Mama, enough—” He tried to pull his hands free, but she held tight.
“No, Geoffrey. Listen to me. Please. It is not just myself. I think, too, your father has suffered to one degree or another because we were forced to wed—”
Geoffrey shook his head, emphatic. He didn’t like the direction of this. He didn’t want to learn—as he’d long pondered—if his existence had begun before a wedding had taken place. Or would he learn his father had wed for money only and then been cruel? Or was he, Geoffrey, another man’s child?
He stood, pulling his hands free. “I marry in two days, by special license before a magistrate at New Garden House. You are invited. It begins at nine in the morning.” He took a deep breath, and forced out words he was half-reluctant to add. “I hope you will be there.”
“Listen to me, Geoffrey.” His mother stood as well, her look imploring. When he tried to move away, she rushed to say, “Tell me this. Have I ever asked anything of you? You know I have not, not since the day I moved from Chenmarth House. But now I do.”
Her voice had broken. It moved him, despite their long-standing estrangement. He stopped withdrawing, and gave her a clipped nod that granted she was allowed to proceed.
Her shoulders went down, and she folded her hands before her. “We tried, your father and I. But once we stopped trying— Geoffrey, it was utter misery. I asked your father for an annulment—”
Eyes wide, Geoffrey shook his head. “An annulment is deuced difficult to obtain. There are so few grounds for one to be granted. The primary one is fraud.”
“Exactly so. Your father and I could never have proved fraud, anymore than you and Miss Hamilton might. And of course, an annulment is such a scandalous thing.”
“So you know entirely well that it would be extremely unlikely Miss Hamilton and I could be granted one—”
“But a divorce is obtainable.”
Geoffrey stared down at his mother’s unhappy face, more than a little shocked. “What an extraordinary thing for a mother to say to her son. Speak of scandal! And expense. Do you know how much a divorce costs? And that it must go before the House of Lords? That no matter how much you might want one, it might be denied anyway?”
She unfolded her hands and placed her left on his sleeve again, and her right over her heart. “Yes. I know. Your father would never grant me a divorce. As a woman I could not request one. Only the husband can.”
He frowned, even though she only spoke the truth.
“Chenmarth would not set me free. Nor himself. I don’t know why, as I would have borne the stain of a divorce. I would have become the pariah, had it served the purpose. I would have allowed him to call me an adulteress, or any of the other charges that would serve.” Her tears had dried, but still she swallowed thickly. “I would have gladly lived as a pauper, would he have used all our funds to finance the divorce—but he always turned a deaf ear to my pleas.” She shook her head, a gesture of pain. “It was so terrible. So barren. We did not speak, did not touch. There would be no more children. No signs of love.” She choked back what might have become a sob. After a moment she found her voice again. “So I finally left his house.”
“Mama,” Geoffrey whispered, stunned even though he thought himself a man of the world. It had never occurred to him that his parents might have spoken of a legal divorce; it simply wasn’t done. But what shocked him more was the agony in Mama’s face. He’d seen Papa’s crushed heart when first the two of them had separated, but he’d had no idea how his other parent had suffered over the years. Yet he saw and believed in her regrets and misery as she stood before him.
“But here is my truth, Geoffrey. Here is what you must understand. I no longer had to share his home, but I yet share his name. He and I are still bound. I could not change the past, nor could I shape a new future. I could not take a new husband. I could not have more sons, or perhaps a daughter.” She gave an unsteady little laugh. “That hope is behind me now, I know. But there had once been time. He would not grant me that time. After all these years, I am become a ghost, stuck between the old misery and a forever nothingness.” She shrugged, though there was nothing carefree in the gesture. “I could have taken lovers—”
“Mother!”
“—But they could not give me a life. I did not want to stain any new children with one man as their father, but another legally bound to them and yet who would never acknowledge them. Do you hear? Do you see?”
“Not entirely,” Geoffrey spoke softly, and perhaps not quite truthfully. Somewhere during her plea, he had taken up her hands again, squeezing them gently.
“You must promise me one thing, despite the disgrace, despite the expense. If Miss Hamilton is so unhappy that she comes to you and asks you for a divorce, you will find a way to give her one. You will free the both of you. You must vow to truly escape that which makes both of you miserable.”
“What if she were miserable but I was not?” He did not tease. He wanted to hear what she had to say.
She pursed her lips, but her eyes were steady. “If she asks for a divorce from you, then I tell you, her misery must sooner or later be your own.”
He let go of her hands, yet the release was not a rejection but a consideration. It would be so easy to pacify Mama with a few words. Easy to promise a thing that Miss Hamilton would be highly doubtful to ask of him.
But Geoffrey did not speak easily or quickly. He peered down into his little-known mother’s eyes, eyes very like his, and discovered he must weigh what she’d said with sincerity.
He’d seen marital misery, albeit not so much through her. Since their parting, Papa may have taken mistresses—Geoffrey had been deliberately blind to any proofs—but Papa had also sat alone before many a fire, unaware his eldest child stealthfully watched normally unseen tears roll down Papa’s cheeks. Had Papa cried for loneliness? For failing at what others managed? For love lost, or love never found?
But…the blemish of divorce? The thought was more than shocking. Broken apart as a pair, he and Miss Hamilton would be cast off from the finest society. Friends would turn their backs, not wanting the stain of divorce to brush against them. Whispers would follow everywhere they went. Miss Hamilton would suffer for the worse, probably becoming a complete exile from the haute ton. Surely it was far, far better to live apart, as his parents had done…
His eyes rose once more to take in his mama’s expression, the tears staining her cheeks. She knew what she asked of him, she knew it full well and yet she still asked.
Hopes. Dreams. Social standing. His future, and Miss Hamilton’s, so altered by their marriage, would be not only changed again but outright damaged by a divorce. But did the potential for damage outweigh the desire for happiness in the years to come? Had he learned nothing from his parents’ separation?
“Yes,” he found himself saying. And then, stronger, “Yes. I promise. If Miss Hamilton asks me for a divorce, I will do all I may to grant her one.” The words said, he shuddered in distaste.
He might have expected Mama to smile in approval or gratitude, but instead she sank against his chest, heaving two great sobs. Just as his arms, unused to touching her, came up to surround her, she pushed against his chest, shook her head, and gave a shaky smile. “Good,” she said, patting the front of his coat with one hand. “Good.”
Geoffrey gave a self-conscious laugh, a bit hollow. “I cannot believe I have agreed to such folly.”
Mama stepped back, one hand wiping at the tears on her cheeks. “Will you tell her? Will she know she has the power to ask?”
He appreciated she had not demanded that of him. It was a small vote of faith in him, even though she little knew him as a grown man. He lifted his chin. “I don’t like it. It says I am ready to give up before we have begun.”
Perhaps some of the warmth fell from her face, but she did not reprimand.
“But, yes. If I am to be held to such a promise involving her, then she must know of it.”
Mama’s mouth pursed again, but this time he thought it was from holding back new tears. She nodded, and gave him a stiff, approving little nod.
A long silence stretched out, with some of the old awkwardness rearing its uncomfortable head now that their strange pact was made. Mama finally broke it. “Will you take tea with me?”
“I cannot. I must call on another now.”
“Miss Hamilton?”
“No. Miss Bremcott.”
“Ahh. The scorned female,” Mama said. Was there sympathy in her tone? For him, or for the lady? And was there a hint of amusement despite her sad eyes, underneath it all?
He called for his hat and horse, not caring to discover any further unwished-for revelations about his mother’s nature.
“But…but, Geoffrey!” Jacqueline said, a sob in her throat, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. He gritted his teeth, hoping she would not let them fall. He’d had enough tears already, now that he’d called upon Mama.
Alessandra had not cried, not once, a point he was realizing was rather in her favor.
“I’m sorry,” he said, not exactly sure why he was apologizing, since he’d never actually said any words of commitment to Jacqueline. There’d been no formal betrothal. “But it must be this way, you must see that.”
Though he had seen it coming, to his chagrin she began to weep.
“Jacqueline, it is not as though this will reflect on you in any way,” he said, resisting his natural inclination to bow and take leave, and instead putting a comforting arm around her shoulders and pulling her to a settee. They had known each other so long. He counted her as a friend, at the very least.
“But everyone knew we would wed one day.”
She must have realized at once by the stiffness that came into his touch and the way he said “I do not concern myself with what ‘everyone’ knows” that she had revealed an unmaidenly presumption. She quickly amended, “What I mean to say is, I love you, not old Viscount Aldford,” she cried into a handkerchief that Geoffrey had given her from his jacket pocket.
He compressed his lips. He had grown up with the idea that he was to offer for Jacqueline. It had been, in their mutual parents’ estimation, a gracious happenstance (that was quite possibly arranged by the Supreme Being) that their country estates shared borders. It was evident to all that those estates ought to be engaged in one big, legal, happy union.
Although it had long been logical to Geoffrey as well, the traitorous thought had run unbidden a number of times through his head that he did not care one whit whether the properties were joined, and he had been putting off that union in all contentment, despite the increasingly pointed hints from Papa for the last two years. And am I a shade annoyed to find Jacqueline’s preference of myself is perhaps because I am a dozen or so years younger than another suitor who waits in the wings?
“Viscount Aldford is at least ten years older than I,” Jacqueline went on. She quaked, clearly distressed. “He can’t dance. His teeth are not good. And his estate is…is too far from London.” Geoffrey had heard the hesitation, and thought perhaps she’d changed her words of “too far” from “smaller and creates less income than yours.” Still, he couldn’t blame her too much if she’d thought that, for a woman had to make the best match she could. And yet my annoyance grows…
“Geoffrey…darling…tell me,” she said in a low voice, turning her head up so that her face was not far from his. “If this terrible tragedy had not happened, would you have asked me to marry you?”
He stared down into her pixyish face with the wide green eyes, the straight little nose, the sweet kiss of a mouth, all surrounded by a bounty of thick blond hair cut into the latest mode of short riotous curls, and decided any resentment played no part here and it would do no harm to tell her he was more certain of this question than he’d been for some time. “Yes, I rather think so.”
“Oh, darling! You have made me so happy.”
“I—but… Have you forgotten…?”
“You love me, not her!”
He stared down at her, a bit confused.
“We must make the most of what must be. I understand. You will marry that Hamilton girl, and I will marry Aldford. I shall be able to bear it, knowing that you love me, that you want me. We will have an affair, passionate and wonderful, our little secret that makes everything else endurable. Everyone takes lovers. Even my mama.” She gave a tiny smile. “Discreetly, of course.”
Geoffrey’s mouth moved, but no sound came forth. For a moment he was tempted to laugh. He would never have guessed there were so many young ladies in London who knew so much of the realities of marriage beds, in or out of them, but then again he had to acknowledge that the pursuit of a husband was paramount in the minds of most females he had known. Perhaps the topics of bedroom affairs and cheating spouses had become as au courant for young ladies as was the delightfully shocking wetted underthings that drew attention to the forms beneath their gowns.
He tried to bring his thoughts back into order, only to find his head felt as if it were spinning. An affair? He was no puritan, but the idea of immediately abandoning any marriage vows made him scowl. Truth be told, not least because he’d been unsure of marrying Jacqueline—and now he was unsure he wanted her even as a mistress.
She slanted into him now, and his arms came up to surround her automatically. Had he loved her once? Did he still, to any degree? She was often charming, and clever, and always lovely. What if Alessandra and he found no accord? What if his bride sooner or later asked for a divorce? Or, perhaps worse, what if she never wanted one, no matter how much they clashed? Would a beautiful lover bring him contentment on the side? Had not he and Alessandra agreed they might take lovers?
He found he did not speak, did not disabuse Jacqueline of the idea that they had some form of a future together. She leaned deeper into him, lips poised for a kiss, but he stood and took up her hand, planting a kiss there instead.
It was not until he was out on the street, about to take up the reins of his curricle, that it suddenly struck him he had, more or less, agreed to break his vows even before he made them.
There was a peculiar feeling in the pit of his stomach. He ought to be pleased with a task better done than anticipated, but he drove away feeling unsettled and a bit unclean.